I Disagree!

An Experiment: are you angry yet?

I am an anti-abortion libertarian hippie, Evangelical charismatic Christian, drinking and swearing pro-piracy, non-interventionist feminist who believes in organic food and capitalism. 

I bet there isn't a person in the world who agrees with everything I believe in, just going from that one sentence.  I'm sure that others could write a similarly impossible statement true for themselves. 

Now, what if I write it like this? 

More worser

• I believe that abortion is or could be murder.
• I believe that the only way to get to Heaven is through submission to Jesus.
• I like hipster clothes, long hair on boys, and cyclists who ride with yoga mats on their backs.
• I believe that the government has no business in the definition or regulation of marriage, that we should withdraw our troops in Iraq and just about everywhere else, and that the right of individuals to rule themselves is much more important than the standard of living.
• I believe that fear of swearing and drinking is superstitious.
• I believe that copyright can only ever belong to the author, and cannot apply to any thought or information, including electronic. 
• I believe that gender roles are only cultural, and pertain to what people enjoy, and stereotyping men or women according to role is incredibly hurtful and damaging to every individual.
• I believe that pesticides are toxic to humans at any level of ingestion, and that most food sold today is not food at all.

As it turns out, I do believe these things.

Ok, so now some of you may be kind of irritated with me at this point.  Maybe you're formulating a response - you might work for Chem-Lawn or the MPAA or something, and you're pissed that I'd infringe upon the status quo within your culture. 

Now what if I said this?

The Worstest

• I believe that you did something wrong when you had an abortion, regardless of the reason.  Anyone who gets an abortion is a sinner.
• I think you’d be better looking if you stopped wearing sweatpants, and if you grew out your hair a bit, and did some exercise.
• I believe that since you don't love Jesus, you're going to spend eternity in Hell.
• I believe that you are a homophobe, since you're scared when people talk about redefining a word.
• I believe that you participate in the deaths of innocent people in Iraq. 
• I believe that you are superstitious and judgmental since you condemn those who drink or swear.
• I believe that you are crazy because you *actually* think that COPYING something is the same as TAKING something from someone. 
• I believe you are a sexist, racist fear-monger because you gain control through putting down people who aren't like you.
• I believe that you are going to have conditions and illnesses resultant of the consumption of food you insist is safe for you because some government agency published something saying it was, regardless of years of solid studies. 

Now we're entering territory where I couldn't say I honestly believed all these things, but let's say I do - and I've probably said all of them at some point when I was pissed off and looking for support, except for maybe a couple.  Now your blood is boiling, and you're having a little talk with yourself about whether I'm worthwhile enough to warrant setting me straight, or whether I'm just going to be one of those people that's always wrong, and you just can't interact with me anymore. 

I might just be a story you go home and tell to your friends as one of those psycho, intolerant bitches who is ignorant and insulting.  Or maybe you're a member of Al Qaeda or something, and you're planning to righteously kill me.  You think the world would legitimately be better off if I were not on it, at least.

Tell me you haven't done that (except the Al Qaeda part, obviously), and I'll think you're awesome.  Because I have.  And I don't think that's a good thing.  Following are some of the reasons I think I respond poorly to people to disagree with me, along with some notes about how I could behave instead.

Can you ever agree with 100% of what someone else believes?

Ok, I can't cite any sources here, but I've literally never met a single person with whom I agreed 100% of the time.  Take libertarians - I don't know many (if any) libertarians who believe that abortion should not be legal.  That's like, against the definition of libertarianism, right? 

And Christians - I don't know any who are totally and completely cool with gay marriage, drinking and swearing, much less (whoa now) feminism.  My beliefs aren't just "not that great" to most people I know, they're simply impossible. 

Leaving my highly opinionated self out of it, I’ve never met anyone who has agreed with anyone all the time.

Seems like our goal may need to be learning to cope with disagreements rather than getting every person, or even one person, to agree with us on everything. 

Empathy

The people who disagree with me are no different from me at all.  They believe in their opinions just as strongly, passionately, and rationally as I do.  That doesn’t mean they (or I) am right, but they have a lot of reasons to believe what they believe.  They have been raised with different expectations of the world, with different innate feelings and reactions, etc. 

Do I honestly believe that I am the only one who truly, passionately believes in my own opinions?  Does everyone else actually know deep down that they are wrong, and it is my mission in life to get them to admit it?  Sometimes I think that is precisely my mission in life, thank you very much. 

I’m not going to dig too deep into that, because that’s just plain ugly. 

I’ll just try to remember – people who can’t empathize are sociopaths. 

Control and Insecurity

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard,

“Why the hell do they call us homophobes?  I’m not afraid of them; I just think they’re wrong!”

Think back for a moment the audience of that question.  99% of the time in my experience, the audience is comprised of people that agree with the speaker.  So someone is asking a bunch of people who will agree with them.  How could those people possibly answer the question?  Well, they probably can’t.  They probably won’t represent the other side of the argument very well.  They’ll probably be like,

“Yeah!  That’s fucking ridiculous.  Maybe they should be afraid of me.  Heh heh.”  (So maybe all your friends aren’t Bubbas, but still.)

Why do we ask our friends questions like this?  It’s almost a form of rhetorical question where the intended or expected response is unanimous support of our own opinions, it seems.  We cannot confront the actual issue, and we somehow have a deep personal need for confirmation of our opinions and belief sets, so we run to our groupies and have a good laugh over people who disagree with us. 

This is highly human – I do it all the time.  But most of the time, I don’t quite realize that I’m putting down another group.  I’m saying,

“They’re ridiculous, they must be mentally deficient because they think different things than I do.  Am I right, ladies?  I mean, heh heh heh…”

And if someone in our group, or even outside of it, were to suggest some empathy for the opposing side, my first sensation might actually be anger that they weren’t supporting me.  Why do we need this form of support? 

Take my personal pet peeve:

When a healthy individual who used to eat pasta all the time tells me that they have a gluten allergy, it’s like a huge bubble of “MUST SPEAK NOW” wells up inside of me.  I must tell you how Wrong You Are!!! is the only thought in my brain, stuck on repeat until I give in and let them know that science is pretty much incompatible with their last statement. 

“Could your body just have trouble processing gluten lately?” I might ask sweetly, in an attempt to sound educated and relaxed.  “Gluten allergies, as far as I know, are related to a genetic disorder that is very serious – if a person with a gluten allergy eats gluten even once in their lives, they end up with severe symptoms and likely in the hospital.” 

See?  Don’t I sound generous with the poor uneducated person?

Wrong.  I’m not being generous at all.  I am exercising control.  I think actually, on some subatomically subconscious level, I feel like I am better than that person because I am right and they are wrong, and I can show them that I have that control by letting them in on my knowledge.  If somebody I’m trying to impress is sitting next to me, they might think “Ah.  This girl is so right, she’s smart.”  And throughout history, smart people are powerful people.  There are lots of things that give a person power, but believing you’re right is one of them.

People do this to me all the time (shockingly, I think I actually do not know very much, as it turns out).  It makes me feel like even people who love me deeply don’t care about me or my opinions at all.  It also makes me angry, and even if it’s not rational, I want to see them disproved.  Even if I have to make up a fact to get it. 

It makes me feel insecure, and like the only way to regain my self-security is to make the other person feel like that too!  Must take back control!

And this, I think, may be the reason we do it in the first place.  We are not secure in our own opinions. 

So when some portion of our culture rises up and becomes more mainstream, like homosexuality for example, it’s as though they’re standing in our faces saying,

“Heh, you’re so unprogressive and backwoods.  Am I right, boys?”

And the only response to regain our lost security, to overcome our own fear of a lack of self-worth, is to put them down in return. 

Bad form, me. 

All opinions, even wrong ones, are valuable

Let’s go back to empathy for a minute.  How rewarding is it when we speak with someone who genuinely wants to know what you believe about something, and who changes their mind after speaking to you?  It gives me, at least, some of that sense of power, but also a sense of value in the mind of that person.  They cared enough about me to listen to what I was saying.

If we want this to be done for us, how can we not do it for others?  I want others to listen to my opinion for no other reason than I think my view is valuable.  That means that likely, other people want the same thing – even when their opinion is different than mine. 

Not to mention, I’ve held a great many views on a single subject in my whole life; I would not be the same person as I am today without having been incorrect all those times before – and it’s not like I’m moving toward one perfect viewpoint on everything; as the times change, our needs and our behavior also changes.  It may be good for me to buy a house now, but in two years not so much.  It may be good for you to buy a house now, but not for me.  This brings us to the next question:

Does a belief have to be true for everyone? (The difference between absolute truth and “IMO”)

Notice I’m not advocating relativism here.  I’m not saying that “everything is relative, so let’s just live our own lives and never bother others with our opinions.”

I’m just saying that the fact that you believe something isn’t sufficient to make it true for everyone.  I might not think it’s ok for me to listen to classical music, for example, but do I have to spread that to others?  Maybe it’s true for everyone!  But why do I care so much?  If a person very close to me is making what I think is a mistake, then I (believe that I) have every right and duty to speak into their lives and say that I think they’re damaging themselves or someone else.  But when I don’t know someone, how can I possibly speak usefully into their lives? 

But WAIT!  What about if it’s in The Bible?  Hah.  You got me!  (Nope.)

So God told the Jews they couldn’t eat unclean meat, that it was an out-and-out sin, in no uncertain terms.  How then must Peter have felt when God told him to eat all sorts of unclean things?  Just because it’s in the Bible can’t, from this passage, mean that God intended it for everyone.  Do we think “oooh, it was in the Old Law, so Peter should have been cool with it.”?  The whole book of Acts is about the debate that went on concerning what cultural behaviors were important for new Gentile believers to follow – Paul even tells them to observe some of the old law, like not eating meat sacrificed to idols (which David, himself in the Old Testament, demonstrated as not a law at all). 

It doesn’t mean that He didn’t mean it for everyone, but the “It’s in the Bible!” argument can’t work on its own. 

If you believe in God (and I do), then I believe He will speak into your life as needed.  I just don’t have a lot of experience with God telling me how all generations for all time must behave.  God has not as yet deemed it relevant for me to know.  I do think He’ll tell me how to behave in my own life. 

And if I know you well, or if some special situation comes up, then I’ll tell you that I think God has something to say to you too; but it’s not me saying it, so I’m not going to be super concerned if you think I’m an idiot.  (And for those of you who don’t believe in God, you probably will.)  And I’m certainly not going to be afraid that my self-worth is exposed to you.  It is ok if you don’t think I’m important, because I know that I am.

(That said, I judge people all the time, and think that tons of people are idiots, and mean people hurt my feelings all the time.  I just don’t want to be this way.)

Is the truth always useful?

There are lots of things that I believe, like in the “More Worser” section above, that I would never say to just anybody.  Why?  Because I know that how a sentence is perceived is more important to the listener than what was meant, and when people hear those things, they think I’m saying the things under the “The Worstest” section.  They think I’m judging them.  I do not ever want (speaking in general terms, not in a specific instance…) to make someone feel insecure or not valuable.  In the heat of a moment, I may want someone to feel like I’m better than them – I often want people to feel shamed at how wrong they have been (ahh, vindication!).  But it’s not right, and I want to cultivate a different attitude in the moments that I’m not all fired-up, so that I’ll respond better when I am. 

The Test: Facebook Debates

Oh Lord.  This section included just for fun. 

My personal modus operandi is more on the passive aggressive side – like:

“Sometimes I get the feeling that people don’t realize they’re being kind of rude.” 

Not made to any person in particular, but out of a total fuming response to some jerk I just read on my feed.  :P so there!  Now I feel good about myself because I just made it clear how much I like putting you down.  And to make it all better, I’ll get 3 likes and a bunch of people commenting how much they agree with me. 

Self satisfaction meter: registering pretty high levels of smug.

Some of my favorite logical fallacies on the internet, for your enjoyment:

• “I’m an expert in the field, so I really don’t see why you’d be disagreeing with me.”
• “Hey, Ron Paul believes the same thing I do, so…”
• “You might think that, but look at all the friends who liked my viewpoint.”
• “Wow, I didn’t realize how ignorant some people could be.”
• “Hey, 'progressive' is the very name of my political stance.  That means you’re anti progress.”

That last one is a favorite of mine.  I don’t even know what to say to that, other than (passive aggressively), This Post Is For You.